Aboriginal people from various communities come into urban centres and take up permanent residence. They then enrol their school age children at urban schools, the same as other parents of different backgrounds.

In Semester 2, 1986, a group of 2nd year Aboriginal and Islander Diploma of Teaching (AITEP-ECE) students embarked on a research project, designed to be a learning experience, which could generate further understandings of concepts within Child Development, Child Learning and Sociology. The project focused on the child within the five to eight year age bracket.

Balga Senior High School is located in the Perth suburb of Balga and draws many of its students from surrounding areas which are made up of Homeswest flats or Homeswest Housing Estates. Many of the students who attend Balga Senior High are from low income single parent families and as such the school is mindful of the program it offers. Out of a school population of about 900, seventy would be Aboriginal. The reasons behind the initial move to appoint a teacher with special responsibility to Aboriginal students to Balga Senior High School can probably be traced back to 1984, when Aboriginal parents in the Balga area expressed concern about current education trends and their implications for their children.

It is important that we all recognise the historic significance of the occasion we have just witnessed. That is the presentation of university degrees to Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. And also the fact that traditional Aboriginal people have received university degrees.

Sometimes, when I am ironing, or driving, or just sitting in the sun, I think of Edie, and I cry. I cry inside, because those of us who are now elderly have been brought up not to show emotion publicly. I cry with frustration and sorrow, because I know that I have let Edie down, and I feel heavy and helpless because it is now too late to say: “Tell us more about that, Edie.”

The co-operative nature of Aborigines can adversely affect their ability to succeed in a competitive schooling system. This can be substantiated by an historical study of various native groups.

Essentially, the competitive learning processes involve a participant consciously persisting in attempts to achieve superiority, i.e., a better relative position with regard to the goal than an opponent can achieve (Owens, 1982, p.l), while the co-operative form of learning involves students interacting to achieve a mutually shared goal. It is not the aim of this work, however, to conclude on the merits of each of these educational instruments. Nevertheless the defence of the competitive system of learning in relation to Aborigines cannot be upheld on inherited or genetic grounds. As a result, most of the arguments that follow discuss the inadequacies of our present competitive system and its inability to cope with cultures that are dependent on co-operative means of behaviour.